Saturday, August 20, 2016

Assclowns of the Week #103: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Toilet edition

For anyone with common sense and/or an allergy to bullshit, these past couple of weeks in this quadrennial are especially trying. We have another corrupt Olympics taking place in a sewer dressed up like a Potemkin village and bought and sold by corporations and, of course, we have another presidential election in which, as usual, we're given the choice of two elderly right wing oligarch psychopaths to vote for as President. And, to top it all off, thanks to a tragically misguided artist with national pretensions, we now have a good idea what one of them looks like naked.

But even among those of us who wish to tune out and drop out, there are the assclowns that overrun the streets like so many bulls in Pamplona. To a guy like me, that's like Michael Corleone, just when he thinks he's out, getting pulled back in. To wit:

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (5) for finally coming out of the closet and announcing her love for Hillary Clinton (3); Ryan Lochte (8) for reminding us Michael Phelps' bong wasn't all that bad, after all; Trump (4, 1) bag boy Chris Christie (6) for handing Trump yet another bag, this one filled with money and libertarian bag o' douche Peter Thiel (7) for silencing one of his critics. So let's hop aboard the Crazy Train and review this week's assclowns and, with a greatly expanded Dishonorable Mentions, much, much more!

10) Rudy Giuliani

In a truly awe-inspiring bit of revisionist history worthy of Michele Bachmann and Katrina Pierson, Mayor Rudy got up before a crowd of right wingers just before Donald Trump's foreign policy speech and claimed. "Under those eight years, before Obama came along, we didn't have any
successful radical Islamic terrorist attacks in the United States."
Had he forgotten all about the defining day of his political career? Or does Rudy just have such high standards of excellence nearly 3000 deaths and three buildings being destroyed and the Pentagon damaged not qualify as "successful"?

Or the thousands of times he'd mentioned 9/11 as his sole campaign platform plank during the 2008 election? Or refuting Donald Trump's claims that thousands were celebrating 9/11?
How hard did Rudy hit his head a couple of weeks ago?
The next day, Rudy claimed he didn't forget about 9/11 and blamed his gaffe on "abbreviated language." More like abbreviated brains.

9) Attorney General Loretta Lynch

I'm just going to come right out and say it because it's always up to me to say what's on the minds of many people who are too craven to say it out loud: Women have destroyed the Democratic Party. You want to know why it's turned into Republican-Lite? Women. Women like Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Roberta Lange, Donna Brazile, Barbara Boxer and last but certainly not least, AG Loretta Lynch. And men let them get away with it for fear of being viewed as sexist or misogynistic. Or maybe they're as corrupt as the women.

Lynch made the news and the grade this week by spiking yet another investigation into Hillary Clinton's semi-open sewer of public service. Last month, Lynch put the kibosh on an investigation into Hillary's email irregularities that should've ended with the formation of a grand jury but didn't. Then this month, Lynch killed another investigation before it had even begun, even in contravention of the FBI's wishes, into the astoundingly corrupt Clinton Foundation. And before all that, Lynch killed a third investigation into Clinton in the wake of Clinton Cash.

I think we all now know the real reason why Obama installed Loretta Lynch as Attorney General and it certainly wasn't for her legal skills. Now, if only Lynch can stop having inappropriate secret rendezvouz with Slick Willie while the wife isn't around.

8) Ryan Lochte

It's difficult enough for American tourists to shed the stubborn image of the Ugly American and to that end Olympic swimmer and world's oldest frat boy Ryan Lochte certainly didn't do the rest of us any favors. A week ago, Lochte claimed he and his fellow swimmers were held up by black Brazilians masquerading as police and were robbed at gunpoint of all their cash. In the cab with Lochte were fellow Olympians Jimmy Feigen, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz.
Then on Thursday, their story fell apart faster than a Hillary Clinton campaign promise. It was revealed that the quartet of swimmers were drunk the night of the "incident" and pulled a Mötley Crüe by trashing a gas station bathroom then refusing to pay for the damages. The scary black men in police uniforms turned out to be an armed security guard who never pulled his gun. According to this game of Telephone, being told to pay for their damages constituted being robbed at gunpoint. And, to this day, Lochte and his co-conspirators refuse to publicly disavow their original story.
Blaming fictional black bogey men for crimes committed by white people is a tried-and-true American evasion and diversion that works. Every. Fucking. Time. It brings to mind Ashley Todd, Charles Stuart and Susan Smith for their initially successful attempts to blame black men for crimes they themselves commit.

7) Peter Thiel

There's something deeply wrong with a nation that officially recognizes billionaire bribes as "free speech" while places such as Gawker get hounded out of existence by one of those same billionaires for legitimately exercising their 1st Amendment rights.
Those of you who have even minimal internet contact must know that Gawker's ending their operations as of this week, a direct result of a bankruptcy filed in the wake of disgraced racist Hulk Hogan's lawsuit over Gawker having published a sex tape with him in it. Incredibly, the Donald Trump VP-wannabe won $140,000,000, so I guess the world's most muscular Klansman's feelings were very, very hurt by watching himself buck naked, fucking his friend's ex-wife.
Then, before Univision bought Gawker's six online entities for $135,000,000, libertarian scumbag Peter Thiel finally stepped from the shadows and admitted he was the one who'd financed Hogan's lawsuit. The cynical partnership was forged, it was discovered, because of Gawker's own hard-hitting pieces about Thiel and his right wing buddies in Silicon Valley. Oh, and Gawker outed him, which also hurt Thiel's tender feelings.Gawker was a valuable source of news and commentary that was extremely popular among millennials and others. Their style of gonzo journalism at a time in which people across all age groups are at best cynical about the MSM was a much-needed breath of fresh air. And the bankruptcy Gawker was forced to file in the wake of a farce of a trial that put a fortune in the pockets of a disgraced racist, and bankrolled by a misogynistic oligarch who ought to be disowned by the LGBT community, will only have a chilling effect on American journalism. The Gawker lawsuit will set a dangerous precedent for vindictive right wing douchebags such as Peter Thiel, who just spent $10,000,000 defending a guy he doesn't give two shits about in order to preserve a reputation that he only made worse.

Bravo, asshole. Well played, well played.

6) Chris Christie

It appears as if Chris Christie spent 25,000,000 New Jersey taxpayer dollars for a Vice Presidential gig he didn't get. He did, however get a consolation prize as the head of Trump's transition team. As the NY Times put it on the 16th,

The
total, with interest, had grown to almost $30 million. The state had
doggedly pursued the matter through two of the casinos’ bankruptcy cases
and even accused the company led by Mr. Trump of filing false reports
with state casino regulators about the amount of taxes it had paid.

But the year after Governor Christie, a Republican, took office, the tone
of the litigation shifted. The state entertained settlement offers. And
in December 2011, after six years in court, the state agreed to accept
just $5 million, roughly 17 cents on the dollar of what auditors said
the casinos owed.

So essentially, Christie arrived at the Governor's mansion with a serious budgetary shortfall and he hamstrung his own state auditors who'd been after Trump for at least five years to pay his taxes. Furthermore, Christie let Trump plea-bargain down his original debt to 17 cents on the dollar of what he actually owed.
And how did Trump pay him back five years later? By making him his bag boy and giving him a job he'll never get to fulfill.
And if in your eyes that didn't qualify Christie for the #6 spot, then maybe what Christie did last Tuesday will.

5) Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Last week, disgraced ex-DNC chair and glorified Clinton temp worker Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a debate with her opponent, Tim Canova. And during it she actually thought it would be a selling point with FL-23 voters to remind them as to whyshe was a disgraced ex DNC chair- "The work we did to prepare for Hillary Clinton, to be our nominee and then make sure we could get her elected President."
Which, of course, is at stark odds with DWS lying to the faces of the American media and public and piously claiming both she and the DNC have been impartial and completely upfront and above board with the Sanders campaign. The lies and the glasnost of her corruption seem to be paying dividends- As of last Wednesday, one poll showed her crushing Tim Canova in the Democratic primary race.
Take heart, Bernie fans. Just because Hillary Clinton's indictment and trial fizzled thanks to a certain corrupt Attorney General, how many times can lightning not strike? In case you didn't see this startling admission, here it is in its full glory:

4) Donald Trump

Right around the same time that Donald Trump gave a foreign policy speech in which he gave the right wing's version of a hippie dippy, all-inclusive, tolerant society, he put up something alarming on his campaign's website that (Gasp!) may actually conflict with his Utopian mantra of enfranchisement for everyone. It's essentially a sign-up sheet for anyone who may want to be a "Trump Election Observer," which for us older folks may bring up unpleasant memories of a similar Republican move from 1981 that the DNC, when it was still the DNC, had a federal court strike down.
Within minutes, it seemed, this resulted in a toxic sludge tsunami of tweets like this one (read my rejoinder):

But in the act of asking his supporters to act as challengers, he could be violating the Consent Decree from the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
So, sure, come into Donald Trump's all-inclusive and tolerant America. But if'n'when y'all try to vote, we'll be watching you and if'n y'all try any o' them there shenanigans, we'll disappear you like a few Civil Rights Workers in Philadelphia, Mississippi we can think of.

3) Hillary Clinton

It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Hillary Clinton, a pro-fracking, pro-TPP Republican in donkey's clothing, one who publicly complains about the "revolving door in politics", would appoint Ken Salazar to be her transition chairman. Salazar, a former Interior Secretary who is himself pro-fracking, pro-KXL and pro-TPP, never met an oil company executive whose cock he didn't immediately suck. If God forbid Clinton wins, he'll be overseeing the appointments and nominations of 4000 government jobs that, with Clinton's and Salazar's involvement, is predestined to be filled with party hacks, executives and corporate lobbyists that already infest the Clinton campaign like fleas on a junk yard dog.
Remember, in 2014, Salazar went to the NAPE Expo (basically Comic Con for planet-eating polluters) and, channeling former EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, actually said in public, “We know that, from everything we’ve seen, there’s not a single case
where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for
anyone.” (The post-Jackson EPA disagrees but who cares what Tricky Dick's liberals think, right?) By the time Clinton & Salazar are through, the White House is going to be merely a K Street Who's Who (as if it hadn't already been made that way by Obama).

2) George Soros

In a Wikileaks-scale data dump, it became apparent that perhaps the right wingers were right about George Soros all this time, albeit for the wrong reasons. It's difficult to get an unbiased view of this massive, years-long hack of 2576 documents (naturally, it's hardly been mentioned on left wing, let alone mainstream media sites but has plenty of coverage, natch, on right wing sites such as Breitbart and American Thinker). The bottom line exposes how Soros, who's indisputably in the tank for Clinton, has influenced world affairs to a larger extent than in even the most fevered right wing conspiracy theories.
It's ironic that Soros' Open Society Foundation had to be hacked before we could see how many levers the old man was pulling from behind the curtain and which ones but it is what it is. Whether you're a right wing nut job claiming it's the result of Russian FSB intelligence or if you take DCLeaks at face value (“launched by the American hacktivists who respect and appreciate freedom of speech, human rights and government of the people.”), one fact remains clear: Soros' involvement in world affairs as well as domestic ones only lend credence to the old conspiracy theory of a few well-monied men controlling the world from the shadows of board rooms.
Of all the sites I've been to, The Daily Caller seems to have the most balanced and unbiased response to this data dump. Here's their overview:

The documents are from multiple departments of Soros’ organizations.
Soros’ the Open Society Foundations seems to be the group with the most
documents in the leak. Files come from sections representing almost all
geographical regions in the world, “the President’s Office”, and
something named SOUK.

“The President’s Office”?! Yeah, you've gotta check that one out. When you go to the first link I'd posted at the top of this segment, you'll be amazed at the different places (think entire continents) where Soros' "Open Society Foundation" has enjoyed influence. Among them: USA, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and so forth. Among the revelations: That Soros had donated $650,000 to Black Lives Matter (which alone made right wing maws froth enough to rival the Louisiana floods) to cynically court them to Hillary's side.

1) Donald Trump

You ever wonder what it would be like if Charlie McCarthy morphed in Joe McCarthy? Here's your answer.
Donald Trump delivered what was billed as a foreign policy speech that sounded instead more like a "Ve must guard der Fatherland" boilerplate. This is part of what he'd said in Youngstown, OH:

Those who do not believe in our Constitution, or who support bigotry and hatred, will not be admitted for immigration into our country. Only those who we expect to flourish in our country — and to embrace a tolerant American society — should be issued visas.

Ja, seig hiel, mein Fuh...! Wait, what?
Yes, you read that right. In one albeit disjointed sentence, Trump had brilliantly turned xenophobia and Islamophobia into a clarion call for peace and tolerance and the screaming Gadsden flag-waving goobers in Ohio actually fell for it. This is what the Chicago Tribune went on to write:

The Republican nominee has made stricter immigration measures a central
part of his proposals for defeating the Islamic State, a battle he said
Monday is akin to the Cold War struggle against communism. He called for
parents, teachers and others to promote "American culture" and
encouraged "assimilation."

Oh, yeah, because being assimilated and indoctrinated into so-called "American culture" worked out so well for countless thousands of Indian children in American and Canadian resident schools. The dog whistle language that Trump's now using is clear when you unfilter it: We'll let you in if you swear a loyalty oath to the bits and pieces of the Constitution we recognize and, uh, leave your own culture and language at the door. We ain't got no use for it.

Dishonorable Mentions

Pam Geller

(Tip o' the tinfoil hat to Tengrain at Mock, Paper, Scissors)
It seems online crank and right wing mob wife Pam Geller's at it again. Or rather, still. For six years now, she's been waging a war against unlabeled halal meat
and insists it should be labeled as such just as Kosher food is. She
even took the extraordinary measure of petitioning the USDA five years
ago to get Muslim meat labelled lest it cause a tsunami of "back door
sharia."
If anyone needs a six foot falafel stick shoved up her ass,
it's Pam Geller. You'd think she'd be much more concerned about the lack
of labeling in Frankenfoods made by Monsanto. But this is Anders
Brevik's muse we're talking about here.

Aetna

The Obama administration had a problem with Aetna, already the third largest health insurer, acquiring Humana in a possible breach of antitrust laws. Aetna had already warned the US government that if they stepped in and blocked the merger, they'd retaliate. Last week, Aetna did just that by dropping out of ObamaCare exchanges in 11 states, reducing Aetna's involvement to just four. It's not very often you see a major corporation having a public temper tantrum over not getting its way, so enjoy this while it lasts.

Natalie Morales and Billy Bush

Watch the white people get all in a righteous lather when the nasty black man starts criticizing one of their own. Al Roker lays it all out then lays out Ryan Lochte's white apologists who keep calling the 32 year-old frat boy "a kid" and that we shouldn't "rush to judgment". Idea: We should make by an act of Congress any reference to Ryan Lochte as the Affleunza Aquaman.

Donald Trump & Mike Pence

When the flood waters engulfed Louisiana, former Gov. Bobby Jindal was able to suppress his inner exorcist long enough to issue a common-sense warning to others to not go to his state for just a photo op, as it would hinder rescue efforts by first responders. So naturally, Donald Trump in his supreme arrogance completely ignored that common-sense warning and showed up with Mike Pence so they could be pictured handing out Play-Doh for precisely 49 seconds before beating it out of there. That's right: Mr. Bill and Mr. Tiny Hands are here to save the day.
Shit, even Bush did better than that after Katrina 11 years ago!